June 18, 2016 - Pinhal, Brazil

Twice a year the Plenary General Council (PGC) of the Congregation (the superior general, his assistants, and the provincials of the six provinces of the Congregation) meet to evaluate, plan, and discusss the life and mission of the Congregation. These meetings are opportunities for the leaders of the Congregation to assess our resources (personnel and finances) and try to place them at the disposition of the entire Institute.

Every December the meeting is held at the general house in Rome while the June meeting is held in one of our provinces in the world. This year the choice was Brazil and the Assumptionist retreat house/spirituality center in Espirito Santo do Pinhal, some three hours west of the bustling metropolis of Sao Paulo. This center houses three separate communities of Assumptionists, the staff of a local parish, the residence of senior religious, and the newly opened novitiate of the Assumptionists in South America (for the Andean province and the province of Brazil).

This particular session of the PGC was marked by two special features --- first of all, the presence of all the provincial treasurers of the congregation for the first two days of the meetings, and, secondly, by the preparation for the general chapter of the Congregation scheduled to be held next May in Lyon, France.

Here are some of the highlights of the 10-day session:

1) the initiation of the new provincial of the Andean Province, Fr. Juan Carlos Marzolla, an Argentinian, who took office on June 1;

2) the review of the work done the previous week by the provincial treasurers under the leadership of Br. Didier Remiot, the general treasurer (the budgets of each province, the costs of formation and future needs, the state of the Congregations funds and real estate, a study of the Congregation’s personnel, plans for the professional formation of local treasurers and for the initial formation of all young religious);

3) an in-depth discussion of the Assumptionist presence in parish ministry (the Assumptionists administer some 56 parishes throughout the world);

4) the ongoing state of insecurity in the region of North Kivu (Democratic Republic of the Congo/DRC), exacerbated by the recent assassination of Fr. Vincent Machozi;

5) discussion of various regions of the Congregation with particular needs such as the Near Eastern Mission (where the Congregation has decided to withdraw from Bulgaria after more than 150 years of presence);

6) a review of the international houses of formation in Kinshasa, Nairobi, and Ouagadougou, and the most recently opened one in Buenos Aires;

7) the approval of two new novice-masters, Fr. Augustin TASI in Butembo (DRC) and Fr. Gervais KAKULE MULIMU in Juvisy (France);

8) approval of a new community to be opened in Bukavu (DRC) and discussion of future plans for Angola, Ghana, and China;

9) the Assumptionist participation in World Youth Day 2016 in Cracow, Poland;

10)  update on the Assumptionist International Education Congress to be held next month at Assumption College in Worcester, MA (USA).

During this session of the PGC members were happy to welcome one of their Assumptionist brothers, Most Rev. José da Cruz, bishop of the diocese of Juazeiro, in the northeast region of this vast country. Bishop da Cruz will soon retire after almost ten years of service to the church of Brazil. He has been asked by the metropolitan bishop to stay on for some time to initiate his successor and complete some projects he began during his episcopal mandate.